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Global Housing Affordability Ranking Shows Increasing Contrast Between Family Income and Home Prices in Major Cities Around the World.
International study compares 95 urban markets and reveals that even in the most affordable location, purchasing property requires more years of income than considered ideal.
Amid global pressure on housing costs, Pittsburgh, in the United States, emerged as the most affordable market among 95 major urban regions analyzed in eight countries in the Demographia International Housing Affordability 2025 report.
The survey shows that the median home price in the area is equivalent to 3.2 times the median annual income of families, the lowest multiple recorded in the latest edition of the study.
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Pittsburgh Leads International Affordability Ranking
The result places the region at the top of the international ranking for the fifth consecutive year, in a scenario where none of the areas surveyed managed to enter the range classified as “affordable,” reserved for markets with a multiple of up to 3.0.
Although Pittsburgh led the list, the report itself classifies it as “moderately unaffordable”, indicating that the deterioration of housing affordability already affects even relatively less pressured markets.
The comparison used in the study is based on the so-called median multiple, an indicator calculated by dividing the median home price by the median annual household income before taxes.
In practical terms, the metric seeks to measure how many years of income would be needed to buy a typical home in each market.
The methodology also standardizes the analysis among countries with different wage structures, currencies, and price levels.
How The Indicator That Compares Price And Income Works
According to the scale adopted by the report, markets with a multiple of up to 3.0 are considered affordable.
Between 3.1 and 4.0, they fall into the category of moderately compromised affordability.
From 4.1 to 5.0, they are classified as seriously unaffordable.
While indexes between 5.1 and 8.9 fall into the severely unaffordable category.
Above 9.0, the document uses the classification “impossibly unaffordable”.
The international ranking covers integrated labor markets, not just the administrative boundaries of cities.
According to the report, these areas often encompass more than one municipality and are defined largely by daily commuting flows and economic connection between the center and periphery.
This choice of cutoff aims to reflect the real functioning of the housing market, rather than restricting comparisons to political-administrative divisions.
U.S. Cities Dominate The List Of Most Affordable Places
At the top of the affordability list, Pittsburgh was closely followed by Cleveland, St. Louis, and Rochester, all in the United States.
Edmonton, in Canada, appeared as the best-ranked market outside the United States.
The same group also included Middlesbrough & Durham, in the United Kingdom, as well as Oklahoma City and Omaha.
The set of the ten most affordable markets also includes Sheffield, Cincinnati, Detroit, Buffalo, Louisville, and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
This pattern helps explain why medium-sized cities and traditional industrial areas continue to appear in better positions when the calculation is made based on local income.
The report does not measure address prestige, tourist dynamism, or international visibility.
The focus is on the distance between the median wage and the median home price.
This is a cutoff that tends to favor less pressured markets by acute supply shortages and accelerated appreciation.
Hong Kong And Sydney Appear Among The Most Expensive Markets
At the opposite end, Hong Kong has once again been identified as the least affordable region in the sample, with a multiple of 14.4.
Sydney follows closely with 13.8.
San Jose appears on the list with 12.1, Vancouver with 11.8, and Los Angeles with 11.2.
Also among the markets classified as impossibly unaffordable are Adelaide, Honolulu, San Francisco, Melbourne, San Diego, Brisbane, and Greater London.
The difference between the two extremes of the ranking helps to gauge the international disparity.
In Pittsburgh, the multiple of 3.2 indicates a relationship that is still tense but much closer to the limit considered ideal by the methodology.
In Hong Kong, the index of 14.4 shows a much wider gap between income and price.
The same applies to Sydney, which has remained among the most critical cases in the survey.
These numbers emphasize the persistence of markets where homeownership is increasingly moving away from the local wage standard.
Global Housing Crisis Pressures Cost Of Living
In the United States, the study highlights that internal disparity is also broad.
The most unaffordable market in the country was San Jose, with a multiple of 12.1.
- Los Angeles scored 11.2.
- Honolulu appears with 10.8.
- San Francisco registers 10.0.
- San Diego comes in at 9.5.
These results place five American markets in the maximum category of unaffordability.
Four of them are located in California.
In addition to ranking the markets, the report argues that the loss of housing affordability has a direct impact on the cost of living, as housing tends to be the most expensive item in the family budget.
The document also argues that more restrictive urban policies regarding land use and expansion tend to pressure prices.
This dynamic occurs by limiting the supply of new housing.
This interpretation appears as one of the explanations put forward by the authors for the rise in multiples in different countries.
At the same time, the study draws attention to a central point in the housing debate.
Price alone is not enough to determine whether a city is affordable.
A property may seem cheap in absolute terms and still remain distant from the average purchasing power of the local population.
Therefore, the use of median prices and incomes reduces the weight of distortions caused by very high or very low extremes.
This method also makes comparisons between markets more consistent.
Study Analyzed 95 Real Estate Markets In Eight Countries
The 2025 edition of the survey was based on data from the third quarter of 2024.
The study covered markets in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
In total, the report accounted for 15 moderately unaffordable markets. Another 28 markets were classified as seriously unaffordable.
The study also identified 40 severely unaffordable markets and 12 impossibly unaffordable markets.
No market fell within the range considered fully affordable. The median multiple of the analyzed set was 5.1.
This scenario shifts the framing of the housing discussion.
More than revealing where purchasing property requires fewer years of income, the ranking exposes the global shift in affordability standards.
The fact that the first place still remains above the 3.0 limit shows that the problem is no longer restricted to historically more expensive markets.
The trend has begun to affect, to varying degrees, practically the entire universe observed by the research.
In this scenario, Pittsburgh emerges as a reference less for representing full ease.
The city leads the ranking because the relationship between income and price remains less unbalanced than in other centers.
Even so, access to homeownership remains distant from the standard considered ideal by the study’s own methodology.
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